Japanese food

Yesterday we started the day with a “japanese style” breakfast in a restaurant not far from the Ueno Youth Hostel. Here is how it looked like:

Japanese breakfast

Of course there are different variations, but I want to explain what the one we ate contained. I start from the upper left to lower right:

1) a whole, scarcely boiled egg, which swam in something we think was some kind of soup. It was served cold.
2) Tororo – grated “yam” (a vegetable) with some sauce we can´t explain what it tasted like. It was served cold too.
3) some marinated vegetables, cold
4) warm rice
5) dry seaweed
6) Miso soup, hot

Although the Tororo tasted kind of weird and the egg was mostly raw (it is meant to be like that), the breakfast tasted quite good.

As lunch we went to a restaurant in Asakusa. We all got green tea immediately after we entered. The waiters refilled our cups regularly (this is one of the coolest habits in Japan, because in most restaurants you get the green tea for free). For the meals, i let the pictures speak for themselves:

meal we forgot the name of ;)

Sashimi

Bento box

All in all it tasted very good. What suprised us, is the price, because we often heard about how expensive Japan is. The breakfast was about 4,50 € and the menues above between 6,50 and 10,50 €. You can get decent Sushi plates for about 10€, although the one of better quality is about 15€ and above. Of course we benefit from the current exchange rate, but even if the prices where higher, we wouldn´t complain, because the amount of food was always enough for us.

Today we went to an Udon shop in Shinjuku, where you can choose the ingredients and topping yourself (so much variations – wow!). It was very , very delicious and I dare to say it was the best we ate in Japan until now. Of course we made some fotos of the shop and I want to close todays post with them: